Gemstones or Crystals? Pendants or Necklaces?

It’s funny how I never know what to call my neckwear jewellery.  Choker is reasonably easy and self explanatory although some think of chokers as the velvet type ones that sit on your neck rather than the wire ones that hang at the base of your neck.  I tend to think of them all as chokers and make both sorts but to me they are all chokers because they are “tight” round the neck as opposed to dangly like drop pendants.

But the dangly ones are pendants (or to most people they are) as they are something that hangs on the end of the necklace chain or cord.  Necklaces, on the other hand are fully beaded or complete all the way round.  But I am noticing more and more that pendants are being called necklaces so maybe (regardless of my company name) I should call them necklace when I list them.  At the moment I compromise by calling them pendant necklaces.  Let me know what you think of my pendants as - gemstones or crystals / necklaces or pendants?

Then there are the different names for the natural stones which I use for 99% of my pendant necklaces.  As I said recently I collect crystals – amethysts, rose quartz, tigers eye etc. in their natural or tumbled form.  Anyone who is into new age type things knows what a crystal is and recognise these which are these natural stones.  But some people think of crystals as the shiny diamonte type things.  The same goes for pendants and necklaces – they think of crystals as shiny man-made diamond type things.  Gemstones on the other hand are thought of as amethysts, sapphire etc. that you get in expensive jewellery.  They are the same but of course they are much higher grade stones but an amethyst is still a amethyst.  The healing properties is amethyst for instance are just the same in whatever format you have it in – an expensive £1000 ring, a £10 pendant, a £5 natural amethyst cluster (lumpy rock – not lots on a ring) or a £1 tumbled stone.  So how to describe the type of amethyst that I use or that you find in a new age shop?  Very difficult to know.  If I call my stones crystals then some people will think they are man made glass type items and if I call them gemstones they think of expensive jewellery shop items.  I tend to go with the flow an call them gemstones because that is a category on ArtFire where similar items to mine are sold so I tend to stick with that.  At the end of the day as long as people can find the type of thing they are after if they put the right thing in the search engine, then when they see what they like they will buy it anyway.  As I sell a lot more on eBay than on ArtFire (although it is only 2 months since I opened the studio on there) I tend to think people may be struggling with what they put in a search engine whereas they almost fall across them on Ebay.  I don’t know – I am only guessing.  It may well just be that Ebay is a ready and popular marketplace and I have yet to get the right formula to send people to my ArtFire studio to see my items.  As there aren’t many following my blog yet not many people see them on here either.  Early days I keep telling myself.

I went to see the orthopaedic consultant again today and he says I still can’t go dancing L  So the achilles tendonitis saga goes on!!!

I have a Did You Know for you today:

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes.
When you pulled on the ropes, the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on.
Hence the phrase...'Goodnight, sleep tight' 

And lastly another little chuckle to end on a high (sorry couldn't resist):